Postgame: Another Canucks Win

Calgary’s season series with the Vancouver Canucks will end with zero regulation wins for the Flames, after they fell 3-2 in overtime Saturday night at the ‘Dome. The Nucks stormed back from a 2-0 deficit and scored a pair in the third period before a Christian Ehrhoff shot sealed things in extra time; the Flames will finish with 94 points on the season, finishing the season with an overtime loss.

What Happened

The first period went the way many thought it would, with both teams playing a very pedestrian game, which made sense. The Flames had nothing to play for and the Canucks were about ready to move onto the season that mattered. But some point in the first, things started getting a little chippy, and some rather heated chirping and behind the play stuff set the scene for a pretty interesting final 40 minutes; it was scoreless after one.

Calgary got their game going in the second though, coming away with a 12-4 scoring chances edge, and scoring twice. The first came at 2:39 of the second period, as the Flames took advantage of a 5-on-3 powerplay opportunity. With Chris Higgins already in the box for high sticking, Ryan Kesler would take a hooking call, and the Flames would convert, with Alex Tanguay feeding a gorgeous pass to Jarome Iginla at the left side of the net at 2:39. The captain would put home his 43rd of the season and a 1-0 Calgary lead. On the powerplay once again, this time a Kesler slashing call, it would be Mikael Backlund following through on a second effort. His tenth on the season gave Calgary a 2-0 lead heading into the third period.

But the third period was the Vancouver show, and it started early on. With a scramble in front of the Flames net, Alex Burrows would put home his 26th of the season from a short distance (of course) and it got the visitors back on the right track. As things got chippy through the rest of the third period, Calgary would be a down a man at 9:14 after Matt Stajan gave quite the pitchfork to Maxim Lapierre. As the Canucks powerplay was winding down, they’d break in four wide with Daniel Sedin finding Henrik Sedin and eventually dropping to Kesler for his 41st and a 2-2 tie.

The overtime period saw the Canucks have the puck almost the whole time, and after some offensive zone time, the puck would come back to Ehrhoff at the point. He’d shoot it and get it past Henrik Karlsson, who was very good all night long…and who was not very happy about the winning goal. He felt he was interfered with, argued the call throughout Calgary’s salute to the fans, but the goal stood, and for a third time this season, Vancouver left Calgary with two points.

One Good Reason…

…why the Flames lost? Because the President’s Trophy winning Canucks took the game over in the third period. Vancouver was very pedestrian throughout the opening 40 minutes, but as they are capable of doing, they drove things when the game was on the line. That’s what Vancouver does, and that’s what they did, and on this night it was good enough for their 54th win of the season.

Red Warrior

I’ll go with Karlsson, just because he played well, but even more so because of his protest of the game winning goal. He was not a happy camper, and while he had cooled down a little bit once we had gotten into the locker room, he was still visibly unhappy with Vancouver winning. He looked cool, calm and composed throughout the entire game, and thwarted the Canucks on some pretty solid scoring chances.

Sum It Up

Head Coach Brent Sutter was happy with the effort his team displayed in a game that meant nothing to them, and as Kent says in his scoring chances post, the Flames played a pretty solid game 82. Fact is, Vancouver remains a better team than Calgary, and just like the Flames really only needed to play one period against Edmonton, the Canucks only had to play one against Calgary to come away with a win.

So ends the 2010/2011 season for the Flames, and it was another disappointing one. The summer of analysis and evaluation will start soon, but I’d like to extend a thank you to all of the FlamesNation readers and commenters all season long, because it’s been a blast to be along for the ride as the site continues to grow.

18 Comments |

Thanks for all of your analysis this year. As a long time Flames fan thats had to move from Calgary to Detroit and now to rural Indiana, this site does a fantastic job keeping me connected to my favorite team.

Thanks alot everyone who contributes to the site for a great season. Great comment, debates, chats and most importantly, TELUS ADS!!! Looking forward to the off-season coverage and more importantly, the start of next season!

A big thanks to Kent, Pat and Robert that put so much effort in here. Not a day goes by that we don’t have some excellent discussions in here.

Pat with his game day and post game articles, seldom do we see comments under the 50’s or so.
Kent.. You did a fantastic job at running the live chats and no matter what was happening in the game, we had some excellent banter going on.

Even though I’m disappointed that the Flames couldn’t make that last hurdle and get into the Playoffs, I am still excited to see what moves are made in the off-season and come training camp I’ll be raring to go again.

Also want to thank all the regular contributors to the conversations for bringing up some excellent points and giving us all something to ponder outside of our own biases.

And of course, who could forget Schevvy?? One more time buddy…

“Do you wanna… Do do you wanna know…..”
I’m sure it’s a question we would all like to see answered!

I’m sure we will all be around in the off-season to keep everyone all updated, but in the words of the late great Ed Whalen…
“In the meantime, and in between time”…… TEH!

Nice. I’ll give you guys full marks if you only find a way to get rid of Stajan. …uh, and Kotalik……….And Hagman…ok all of the above! I gotta say that coming to FN, and the live chats have made watching this season a lot of fun. Kudos, hopefully there’s enough going on to keep us busy through the summer.

Not as if the boys gave up without a fight. Calgary didn’t make the dance but showed true heart during the back-half of the season and it was a true “Calgarian role yer sleeves up and git ‘er done” effort. As a Flames fan that lives on the Westcoast, I’d like to thank the guys (Pat, Kent & Robert) on Flames Nation for making it seem like Calgary is not so far away (gotta love technology). At least I got to see a great Heritage Classic game at McMahon – truly the highlight of the year.

Flames go 0-4 against Vancouver and 0-4 against the Wild. A total loss of 16 points. Let’s say the Flames only win two of those games they are at 98 points and not 94. You can’t be swept against division rivals. If you split or even go 1-3 that’s something. In these series they got nothing. Nice to hear Jay Feaster saying Iginla is part of the solution and he isn’t going to trade him. We’ll see what happens at the draft and if Jay is still calling the shots at that point.

Thanks for all of the fantastic work you guys put in this year. This site is my first stop for all my flames info and I love the debates we have on here. Great articles and great content fills these pages. And the odd troll shows up just to make a fool of themselves for our amusement. Keep it up and we all look forward to an interesting off season!!

There is a reason that flamesnation is my home page, and all of you guys are it. I can’t get through a day without checking in here and reading the great work by Kent, Pat, Robert and everyone else. Can’t wait till all the convo about what to do for next year begins. Keep up the great work, Flamesnation!